One of those weeks

Have you ever had one of those days where everything goes wrong? It starts with sleeping through your alarm, forgetting to wash the conditioner out of your hair and then realising there is no milk left for your cup of tea.

Welcome to my week.

However, the lowest point came when a mistake was made at work and unfortunately the buck stopped with me. I couldn't, and to some degree still can't, reconcile how this error happened but have accepted it must've been an error on my part. No-one likes getting anything wrong, and I'm no exception, but I often dwell on these things much longer than I should.

When I went home from work that day I had a few options for dealing with the stress I was feeling over the situation: eat, sleep, watch tv, drink or run.

I pulled on my running gear and headed out the door. My headphones went in, my mind switched off and my feet automatically carried me on a run around Hagley Park.

Instead of my usual running music (I'll save the confessions of my playlist for another day), I mixed it up for songs that matched my mood. Think AC/DC, Eminem, The Killers and Arcade Fire.

In Christopher McDougall's book Born to Run: A Hidden Tribe, Superathletes, and the Greatest Race the World Has Never Seen, there's a great quote: "If you don't have answers to your problems after a four-hour run, you ain't getting them".

No, I didn't go running for four hours, but even short runs can give me answers or destress me.

By the time I'd run around the park and was back at my door, life was that little bit brighter and I realised that while sometimes owning a mistake was a bitter pill to swallow, holding on to it was so much worse.

Letting it go and realising it was a new day tomorrow with a clean slate is the best way forward. Whatever happened was in the past and that was where it would stay - and lesson learnt about being extra careful.The rest of my run I couldn't tell you what I thought about as I don't know. The mind cleared, the body moved and my feet did what they like to do most - run.

How do you deal with stress? Do you run away stress? Or, do you prefer to turn to another coping mechanism? E-mail me on rachel.young@press.co.nz, comment below or follow me on Twitter @YoungRachelS